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Great Southern Landscapes Habitat restoration SA Threatened species

120,000 new plants for Kulliparu Downs

The golden planting crew from Pinnacle Silviculture at the end of a rainbow at Kulliparu Downs.

Greening Australia is celebrating a major milestone in its restoration work at Kulliparu Downs, a 3,300+ hectare property on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, with 120,000 new plants now in the ground.

Kulliparu Downs was purchased for restoration in 2025 in collaboration with Conscious Investment Management (CIM), as part of a long-term commitment to large-scale ecological restoration of the critically endangered Drooping Sheoak Grassy Woodland on Calcrete vegetation community in the region.

The Kulliparu Downs project aims to restore four different types of vegetation, including a large area of Drooping Sheoak Grassy Woodland, to rebuild vital habitat for the Malleefowl, the Little Long-tailed Dunnart, and a range of declining woodland bird species that depend on healthy, connected native vegetation to survive.

The property shares a boundary with Kulliparu Conservation Park, making the revegetation a strategic extension of existing remnant habitat.

The Little Long-tailed Dunnart is one of the species set to benefit from the increase in available habitat. Photo credit The Wildlife Diaries.

The planting effort

Planting at Kulliparu Downs this year has combined direct seeding and hand planting of seedlings.

Prior to planting, Wirangu and Nauo Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC completed a cultural heritage survey of the site. Munda Kinect helped Greening Australia coordinate logistics for planting seedlings grown by Bayview Trees. And a dedicated crew of 10 provided by Pinnacle Silviculture pushed through wet and boggy conditions to plant 120,000 seedlings in June, averaging an impressive 18,000 plants per day.

Seedling planting at Kulliparu Downs underway.

Mapping of completed direct seeding at Kulliparu Downs.


The project is now near completing its direct seeding target, with Habitats SA and Garden of Eden having completed 1,700km of direct seeding using 720kgs of native seed supplied by Nindethana.

The planting has been registered by Canopy as a carbon project with a 100-year Permanence Period (ERF206220).

Part of a bigger season

This collaborative planting at Kulliparu Downs is part of a much larger season of on-ground restoration being led by Greening Australia’s team in South Australia. Across the state, the team will be revegetating 3,500 hectares this year, involving almost 235,000 seedlings and 4,726 kms of direct seeding (farther than driving from Perth to Townsville).
 
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